


I Cannot Sleep For Fear

by Path



Category: Homestuck, MSPA, Problem Sleuth - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-10
Updated: 2012-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 08:51:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Path/pseuds/Path
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Diamonds Droog was alive, Pickle Inspector could never choose between him and his friends. Now that he is dead, Droog is making it no easier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ferrumnegative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferrumnegative/gifts).



> Whew it's been a long time. This is for detectivedeathmachine, whose art is terribly inspiring. With luck, there will be more. I hope this one wasn't too awkward. It's been months since I've written.

Diamonds Droog is dead.

Pickle Inspector went to the funeral, or at least lurked disconcertingly nearby. It was close enough to count, like the bullet that killed Diamonds Droog almost instantly. Pickle Inspector had shot a lot of people in his time, shot them with a calm heart and a steady hand, but he'd never seen anyone drop so quickly. At least, that's how it seemed; perhaps Droog's deceptive slowness in life was what made his death seem so sudden. Inspector had never really considered it that way.Alive one second, and the next, nothing. It was the middle of a throwdown with more than just the Felt and the Midnight Crew, and despite it, Pickle Inspector's weapon fell out of his hand and his heart fell out of his chest.

_Alive one second._

He _is_ dead. Pickle Inspector saw it. He's always had a weakness for drink, but it's never impaired his functioning, not really. All the work happens up here, not in the hands. He doesn't drink when he needs his hands. They shake so. But when he needs his brain, when he needs to be more and better and smarter and honed, is when he does. And now.

Except now his drinking must be impairing him, inserting imaginative bits in where there is nothing but air and heavy Midnight City fog, because he's back again. Pickle Inspector stands at the window of his office in the middle of the night (he hates to drink at home), and stares into the cold street below and the solitary figure standing there, looking up. Inspector shivers, takes rather a larger swig than intended, and when his coughing fit is over, the illusion is too.

_The next, nothing._

A pleasant routine shattered; Pickle Inspector takes tea alone in the afternoon. His lady friend is concerned at sleepless nights spent slaving over meaningless puzzles. It is only that he dares not sleep, for fear a knock will come, and he will miss it. The curious double meanings of language amuse him briefly, and he smiles sickly. It is as apt to say it twice. He dares not sleep, for fear.

In those moments he does find himself asleep (and Pickle Inspector has always been of the type of dreamer termed "lucid"), he lives it again and again. So simple a motion, so quick and swift and thoughtless, death. The moment was so fast he can replay it a thousand thousand times before he wakes and still be unable to change it; Droog falls, Inspector drops his weapon. Sometimes it takes a year from the bullet in his heart to finally reach Inspector; perception confuses him. He hears the gun's cough before he sees the fall, but they only happened shards of a second away from each other, not the endless ages it takes sometimes. In his sleep.

He walks the streets nervously. He always has, but this mortal terror bears little resemblance to the social anxieties of the past. Now it doesn't even occur to him to remember to nod or smile at passers-by. He is too concerned with dark alleyways and what he can see of the horizon.

They buried him, coffin and all. He looked as pristine as ever, hair methodically smoothed back, hat in hands. You couldn't see the hole. Pickle Inspector looked.

Once, Droog wore a red diamond sewn to his coat. Pickle Inspector doesn't know what happened to it, but the figure waiting when he leaves his office doesn't wear it, so he can't be Diamonds Droog. Also, Diamonds Droog is dead. But the figure is tall and slender with posture like a fireplace poker. He has black hair smoothed back, and grey at his temples. He has a sharp nose and his mouth is curled in a sneer. But it can't be him.

Pickle Inspector walks past the illusion, the confusion of perception that will not leave him.

"Hello, Inspector," the illusion says. Its voice is so close, but not quite right. That is how Pickle Inspector realizes that it's him, that it _is_ Droog standing there, standing and waiting when he should be in the ground. If his brain had manufactured the image, it would have been perfect.

He runs.


	2. Chapter 2

Nights are infinitely more terrifying now, and NB does not spend them with him. He has insisted, for the time being, that he will only keep her awake too. She returns to her own apartment, clearly measuring his sanity. As the door closes, he runs to the bathroom and vomits violently into the toilet. The medicine cabinet has something, surely, that will black him out and make him sleep. He doesn't care what he has to combine. It is late at night now, for time has passed confusingly in his sickening fear, and he wishes only to not be conscious for it.

Yes, something, in a bottle with a frustrating cap for shaking fingers to manage, but something. He tosses back what remains of the bottle with a handful of water, and replaces the bottle in the cabinet absent-mindedly. When he sighs, retrieves the bottle, and closes the cabinet, Droog's face is behind his in the mirror.

It is the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to him, and again he feels the sensation of his heart falling shattered from his ribcage. The bottle falls from useless fingers and rolls to a stop against Droog's polished shoe. "Hello, Inspector," he says. His voice lacks resonance and his features are pallid. Eyes grey. The white streaks at the sides of his head are wider than Pickle Inspector remembers.

"This can't be," he whispers in return. There is no diamond sewn on his pocket, Inspector notices, fixating on the detail to escape the overall horror. But there is still red, from the hole. His vision swims. "It can't be."

"You're not making sense," says Diamonds Droog, and his mouth moves slowly into a smirk. It looks wrong on his face. "Come now, I can't visit an old friend when I choose?"

"No," says Pickle Inspector, then, feeling the numbness in his limbs, on his tongue, says something he could never say to Droog when he was alive. "Leave me alone. Leave me alone, oh God."

The smile falls from Droog's face more easily than it crept there, and he opens his mouth, but Inspector cannot hear his reply, if he replies. He lurches, makes a futile grab at the lip of the bath, and then knows no more-


	3. Chapter 3

-until he wakes sometime in the day, sun pouring disorientingly through one dusty window. His head is stuffed achingly full of something thick, and his tongue feels fuzzy. He is stretched across his bed, shirt loose at the neck and shoes removed. He sits up violently to regard them, sitting matched and even at the base of his bed. He's never straightened his shoes in his life (it has, honestly, never occurred to him that such a thing is done) and besides, they are straighter than he could manage even sober.

He does not spend much of the day sober, but his house is empty. He checks, over and over.

Problem Sleuth comes to call. Pickle Inspector is in rather worse a state than usual, and has the uncomfortable feeling that Problem Sleuth knows why, though he doesn't. He can't, unless he too is haunted by the shambling corpse of the man he used to be... something. With.

Problem Sleuth is nothing of the sort. He sickens Inspector, in a way, so vibrantly full of life, offensively colourful and enthusiastic. Sleuth smiles too big as the door opens. "Hey, PI, my favourite guy. I haven't checked up on the team lately. Where've you been for the last month?"

Diamonds Droog died twenty-five days ago. Twenty-six days ago, Problem Sleuth came to visit.

Pickle Inspector doesn't smile back. "Busy," he says, lying to Problem Sleuth for the first time. "I've had several things to take care of."

"Hey," says Problem Sleuth, "we all get those times. But buddy, I hope you're ready for this, 'cause I got a job for you, and I think you're the best guy for it."

Pickle Inspector shuts the door in his face (not for the first time), and leans against it. Problem Sleuth doesn't leave right away, continues to talk through the door. He nearly beckons Inspector outside with his wheedling, his clever words and well-meant ways, but Pickle Inspector is in no way ready to deal with those face-to-face. He locks the door, closes his eyes, and huddles against it, taking shaking breaths of air that smells too much like night and slightly wet dirt. His rifle is in the umbrella stand, and he holds it like he would hold a small fearful child.


	4. Chapter 4

Eventually, Problem Sleuth goes away, though Pickle Inspector knows he's escaped only for now. He'll be back, and he'll bring Ace for more forceful convincing. To avoid it, Pickle Inspector dons coat, scarf, and hat, and flees into the city. He brings his rifle, slung across his back, and is too desperate to find the case. Diamonds Droog is out there, somewhere. But better him than the others, right now.

If only he'd chosen that all along, or at least been consistent. If at first when he'd met Diamonds Droog he'd picked the team over him. Then his death would have meant nothing to him, and Droog would not be waiting for him in dark alleys, to visit. Or if only he'd chosen Droog at that moment and stayed, and likely that fatal bullet would not have found its way to Droog's heart and silenced it. Then his death would still have meant what it did, but Pickle Inspector at least wouldn't be haunted as he is. He feels a little ill at the thought of either, at what he would have had to say to Problem Sleuth or to Droog.

But he has effectively said both of those things now. Why didn't he earlier have the courage to shut the door in Problem Sleuth's face? Or to beg Droog to keep away from him? Indecision has ruined him, indecision and cowardice. And now, what good is he done by having learned not to care? The fights it would have mattered for are over.

He has walked to the graveyard, and the sunshine that woke him with juxtaposed cheeriness has proved as short-lived as all Midnight City sunshine. Clouds loom. It may rain. The hill is mostly outside the city; Pickle Inspector is a little surprised at how far he has walked. The gate is open; why would they put a gate up if not to keep the dead out? he wonders. Perhaps someone left it open. Someone who couldn't decide if it was better to be superstitious but safe, or if it might be alright to have the dead around for a little while.

Someone who would finish a mission with his team, congratulate success all around, and then have tea with one of the most dangerous and arguably evil men in the city. That sort of person.

Droog's grave is not pristine. The stone remains straight, but the earth is turned and disturbed, damp from rain. Footprints surround it, of course, from the funeral. The extra set does not shock him, the set that doesn't lead to the grave. He stands there as the sky clouds, and looks at the stone.

"Hello, Mister Diamonds," he says, to nothing. "It's been such a long time. I have missed you." Simple small talk; so hard to master at the beginning, but second nature now. Marvellous how one can learn without realizing they're learning. "I think this will be the last time we get together for a while, if you will forgive me the offense, but I have some things to get in order."

He pauses, as if Droog will respond. Nothing. He smiles weakly all the same, perhaps from exhaustion, from leeched terror, or some fond memory.

"Impolite of me to come empty-handed, I know, but I've no tea and no biscuits and really I'm not feeling terribly hospitable at the moment. I just... had some things I wanted to say." How can it be so easy to say these things, he wonders, and why couldn't he have said them twenty-six days ago? He sighs and eases himself down, knees pressing into the damp ground. "I should really have kept away from you all along, you know. These liaisons, they're dangerous for us both, but I think we both know they're more dangerous for me." It was so strange, so hard to live with that mix of terror-anticipation that Droog sparked in him, almost too strong an emotion for his fragile frame.

"So for the time being I really must leave. I fear that what we have is going to poison us. It's already poisoning our respective friends. They can't understand it and they will not understand it, and I'm afraid they'll make us end it. You're strong, I know. You'll do what you want. But I am not, and I will not, and I'll do what Problem Sleuth asks me in the end. So please, just... for your own good, and for my sake. Stay away."

Pickle Inspector has rarely uttered so many words, so clearly, all together. For a moment a tiny, victorious smile crosses his face.

"How foolish," says Diamonds Droog, behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

Pickle Inspector rises, eyeing him, and backs to what could be construed as a safe distance if Droog was still alive. A safe distance from a walking corpse is probably a great deal larger than a few paltry feet. In the light of day, even the grey day, it is obvious that that is what he is; his skin is a mottled pale grey and Pickle Inspector can see the dirt under his fingernails, the little details glossed over in night. They always described him as "bloodless", Inspector knows, but now it is true.

"No," he replies, swallowing his instinct to run. "Or maybe, yes. But it is my choice."

"I would say it is ridiculous," says Droog with his hollowed-out voice, "to choose safety over pleasure. But I suppose I have usually chosen it myself. Except with you."

His words fall like raindrops, as if Droog himself doesn't realize the meaning of them. His eyes are empty and he doesn't wear his customary sneer, but a curious lack of expression. Pickle Inspector, as socially uneducated as he is, still picks up on the difference; once Droog hid his reactions. Now, he simply does not have them.

"With me." Inspector finds himself saying.

"Yes. But that was my choice."

"I'm sorry," says Pickle Inspector, not for the first time.

"But why?" asks Droog colourlessly.

"I killed you," he says, and it comes out nowhere near as awkward and horrible as he'd feared. It is so simple, when it comes down to it. "I was only supposed to injure you, but I killed you. I think I did it intentionally, to stop... to stop you from coming back. So I wouldn't have to choose. But you're back anyhow."

"You..." echoes Droog, and a frown nearly crosses his features. "I thought... I wondered. Who _could_ kill me. But you..."

"I did," Pickle Inspector repeats. "I could. It was enough. I wish I hadn't, but I did." And that, at least, he'll keep to. He walks past Droog, who catches his wrist in one hand. His fingers are cold and very hard. For a moment fear almost overtakes him again, but settles again as Droog reaches behind his neck, bends him towards him, and their foreheads meet. Pickle Inspector doesn't keep track of the seconds, but when it's been long enough, he steps away a few more paces.

"Goodbye, Mister Droog," he says.

"Goodbye, Inspector," Droog replies, and then he falls, just as quickly and suddenly as he had the first time. Pickle Inspector doesn't check, doesn't stay to look at the body lain across the grave. It is enough, and he knows somehow that it is over. He slings his rifle across his back, though, and walks away with a calm heart and a steady hand.


End file.
